SPANISH REVOLUTION

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about dancing to dance in the rain. Unfortunately some people in Spain hate the rain, the same people who think that they can change the whole system by sitting in a Square to smoke Marijuana and waiting for a miracle to happen. This has been called the Spanish Revolution. At the beginning most of the people gave their support to the movement. This can be explained by the lack of confidence in the politicians of all tendencies. It is has been also argued that they were going to stop the capitalism system. Let’s notice that the high unemployment, reaching 45 per cent among young people has impact on the perception of things.

 The Spanish Indignados take part in demo against mass unemployment. They finally have risen up and mobilized to defend their beliefs and express themselves. Their movement is about to make political classes aware that something is not right. Who could be against the movement then? Many people and for obvious reasons; first of all, the protesters did not identified, unless at the beginning, with any political party but in the end the movement was used by the most left wing radicals to give publicity to communist propaganda. So the less radical people abandoned it. In Spain there is always a tendency to avoid extremism partly because of the troubled history of the nation.

 One year has passed by and the Plaza del Sol has marked a sad anniversary. There are not on the news and it’s a common belief that the indignados will never dominate national news coverage. I guess that it all emerged spontaneously but the uncertainty of where the movement will lead, it has left doubts on the supporters. But of course we can learn many things from this revolution; if we are going to get out this mess, there are two essential ingredients we will need: empathy nurtured by a strong civil society, and innovation nurtured by an entrepreneurial spirit.. It is time to produce a political system that rewards these essential traits, instead of being to the mercy of lobbyists and big money, donors, may require a movement of citizen taken to the streets. It’s about enabling people to have a chance to get as far as they can, but by sitting in the Square and doing nothing, is not the right solution.

 I guess that I have my doubts when the first indignados took to the streets. I have to recognise that the protests was not filled with long haired hippies left over from the 1960s , I could see high school kids with their parents, college students, men in business suits. Even still I got my doubts. I knew that the movement was going to be sabotaged from inside. The Spanish secret service took advantage from the radicalism of some extremist people. The rest is just history. It’s a shame, anyway, that the demonstrators never heard a song called Revolution, It was written by John Lennon in the Spring of 1968 when student demonstrations had reached a fever pitch all around the world, most notably in Paris, where a massive strike and resultant riots led to the collapse of the government led by Charles De Gaulle. John Lennon, who questioned the goals of the leftist movements even as he championed their basic beliefs, wrote the song to the world young revolutionaries. When the single version was released, the political left viewed it as betraying their cause. So today it’s a good time to remember that song; especially when some people are convinced that they are superior to the rest of us, because they are socialists or communists. So let’s focus on the song; “you say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world, but when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out”. Lennon was right, violence is never the answer. “You say you got a real solution, well you know we’d love to see the plan”. Until now I haven’t heard any intelligent proposal from the 15-M. “ You say you’ll change the constitution, well you know, we all want to change your head, you tell me that the institution, well you know, you better free your mind instead but if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow. Once again Mr Lennon was right again, how somebody can believe in changing anything for good carrying communist symbols. Communism has caused over 100 millions victims around the world, including genocides, executions, deportations and artificial famines.

 In summary, the storm will pass and the crisis will come to an end. By then some people will have learnt to dance in the rain, then they will say “Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right. Partly because the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams, and the dream of the Spanish Revolution was simply a nightmare.


Sergio Calle Llorens